Thursday, August 2, 2007

"We just heard screams of pain and the sounds of beatings. Then the screams stopped."

An Israeli soldier told Israel's Channel 10 that he witnessed Egyptian troops killing four Sudanese attempting to reach asylum in Israel from the Sinai.

According to the soldier, female IDF troops operating night vision devices identified several refugees approaching the border in an attempt to infiltrate Israel and alerted other soldiers who arrived after a few minutes in an army jeep.

However, Egyptian troops who also discovered the refugees, fired upon them, immediately killing two and wounding a third. A fourth refugee ran towards the fence and an IDF soldier stretched out his hands, trying to help him cross.

At that point, the soldier recalled, two Egyptian soldiers arrived and started pulling at the refugee's legs.

"It was literally like we were playing 'tug of war' with this man," the soldier said. The soldier eventually loosened his grip on the man, fearing the Egyptians would shoot him.

"They were aiming loaded weapons straight at us, I was afraid they were going to shoot us," he said.

The Egyptians then carried the man several meters away from the border fence, and proceeded to beat him and another wounded refugee to death with stones and clubs.

"What happened there yesterday was a lynch. These are not men, they're animals. They killed him without even using firearms," the soldier said. "We just heard screams of pain and the sounds of beatings. Then the screams stopped."

The IDF apparently has this incident on videotape. It will probably never allow it to be seen for fear of creating embarrassment for Egypt.

But there is something horribly, hideously wrong when Egyptian troops, who for so long have let smugglers move weapons and explosives into Gaza with relative impunity, go out of their way to kill four unarmed persons -- Muslim persons, at that -- seeking asylum. Perhaps they hope that other Sudanese will hear of this incident and decide not to try to cross Egypt to reach the safety of Israel.

Isn't the Islamic world supposed to be one ummah, where all Muslims are brothers?

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